Denso Corporation

Yoshihiko Sugawara

Satoru Muramatsu

Eiji Sobue

Atsushi Hayashida

Wataru Sugiura

Satoshi Kouchiyama

Ryoichi Ijima

Daisuke Nomura

Kenjiro Tanaka

Syo Ichihashi

A charge controller for charging a battery of a plug-in vehicle with a plurality of electric power sources includes: a driving route estimation element; an estimated electric power consumption amount calculator; a weather information obtaining element; a sunshine information obtaining element; a solar photovoltaic generation electric power amount calculator; an electric power shortage amount calculator for calculating an electric power shortage amount when the solar photovoltaic generation electric power amount is smaller than an estimated electric power consumption amount; a charge schedule preparation element for preparing a charge schedule, which represents a first charge time for charging the battery with a solar photovoltaic generation system and a second charge time for charging the battery by the electric power shortage amount with another electric power source; and a charge control element for controlling to charge the battery according to the charge schedule.

Charge controller and navigation device for plug-in vehicle

A device for informing to a driver a speed limit set for an own lane included in a multi-lane road is installed in a navigation system mounted on an automotive vehicle. The device includes a road surface camera for taking pictures of the speed limit painted on a road surface and informing devices such as a display panel and/or a speaker. The speed limit set for the own lane is specified based on the pictures taken by the road surface camera, and the specified speed limit is informed to the driver. Speed limits set for neighboring lanes may be also specified, and if they are different from the speed limit set for the own lane, this is informed to the driver together with the speed limits set for the neighboring lanes. It is not required to distinguish the own lane from among other lanes included in the multi-lane road because the speed limit set for the own lane is detected by the camera mounted on the own vehicle.

Speed limit informing device installed in on-board navigation system

A weather information notification apparatus mounted to a vehicle is disclosed. The weather information notification apparatus includes: an acquisition section that cyclically acquires information about weather at a point; a record section that stores the acquired information about weather at the point in an external storage medium unit; and a notification section that causes an external notification unit to notify information about non-latest weather at the point, the information about non-latest weather at the point being a piece of the information about weather at the point stored in the external storage medium unit.

Weather information notification apparatus and program for the same

In a navigation system, a switching use dictionary is provided as storing an aggregation of switching commands, which are also stored in the individual language-specific dictionaries including the languagedictionary, languagedictionary, . . . , and language n dictionary. It is determined whether a switching command included in the switching use dictionary is matched with an inputted speech. When a certain switching command is determined to be matched with the inputted speech, a certain language-specific dictionary corresponding to the certain switching command is substituted for a default active language-specific dictionary. Thus, the certain language-specific dictionary is newly selected as an active language-specific dictionary used for operating the navigation system by a speech input.

Speech recognition apparatus and navigation system

Retrieving an on-map position is executed within a targeted search area that is one of search areas. Search information items are stored for retrieving. Each of the search information items is related to one of the search areas. Area-designating information items are also stored for designating one of the search areas. When a user selects, as a search item, one of address-book information items, address information included in the selected address-book information item is collated with the area-designating information items. A corresponding search area is thereby automatically designated as the updated targeted search area. Thus, based on the address-book information and area-designating information, the targeted search area is automatically switched into a search area that includes the retrieved on-map position. User's procedure in retrieving the on-map position can be thereby reduced.

Map search system

In a vehicle navigation system, a memory stores branch road numbers as a part of links which indicate branch roads branching out from a main road or a rotary road. The branch road numbers are specific to the branch roads, respectively, and may be exit numbers of an expressway or the rotary road. The branch road numbers are identical with actual indication provided on roadside signboards which indicates respective branch roads. A navigation control unit provides a branching guidance in the course of a normal travel route guidance when a vehicle approaches a branching point. The control unit checks whether a branch road number is available, and retrieves it when available. This retrieved number is provided as a voice message to a driver.

Vehicle navigation having branch road guidance

A navigation system for vehicles has a rewritable memory, which stores data of a plurality of locations, and searches the rewritable memory for a target location for use in guiding a travel route. When a user inputs a new location for registration, data of an input new location is stored in the rewritable memory in addition to original data of the plurality of locations. This data of new location may be stored by updating the original data or by adding separately from the original data. When a user requests a search for the target location by a name of the target location, the navigation system searches it alphabetically by referring to both data of the plurality of locations and the new location. The navigations system may be designed to conduct the location search by a facility type.

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Anjo, Japan

Yoshihiko Sugawara